UC San Diego

Many scholars have argued that whiteness permeates all parts of the American public system. In schools, whiteness has been said to be challenging to study as it operates differently in different contexts, so while it might show up one way in some schools, in other schools, the ways of whiteness take up a different shape. Given that white teachers represent the vast majority of teachers in these schools, there is a need to understand how school context influences their perspectives on race and whiteness. This dissertation reports on findings from a qualitative interview study of nine teachers in two high schools. The stories these teachers tell show many of the ways whiteness is maintained in the two schools including by: being rendered invisible, promoting a culture of individualism, and obscuring the pathways to eliminating its dominance. While teachers told stories of pushing back against whiteness, a major finding was the ways in which the school systems that were built on whiteness held on to power even with opposition. Implications focus on the need for further research in to the ways systems of whiteness maintain themselves and the need for a clarity of purpose when working to dismantle white supremacy.